


the centrifuge and the press

by Crystalwren



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Asexuality, F/M, Kink Meme, Moral Ambiguity, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:04:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalwren/pseuds/Crystalwren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and Mycroft discover that John and his sister Harry are having sex and have been for years. John is deeply ashamed but he keeps sleeping with her anyway. Mycroft quickly figures out the reasons behind it; it takes Sherlock rather longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the centrifuge and the press

**Author's Note:**

> Response to the LJ sherlockbbc_fic kink meme challenge:
> 
>  
> 
> Mycroft and Sherlock catch Harry leaving John's room/Baker Street. It's obvious that John and Harry have just had sex. They're both horrified and when they confront John about it, he refuses to talk to them about it...until one night Harry starts to kiss John. John doesn't take it well because he really doesn't like having sex with Harry( she's been manipulating John for years into thinking that he has to do this for her). After Harry has left, John tells Mycroft and Sherlock the truth.

  
_"I have been told that I will be taken to the centrifuge and the press, for the doctors are relentless optimists and believe that by heroic measures they will find something of worth inside me. Once a week, pitiless agents will collect my tears."_

– _The Etched City_ by K. J. Bishop

 

Her eyes are very blue and she’s very striking, but by no means beautiful. When she brushes past them she smells like sweat and semen as she exits 221B Baker Street. But it’s raining, it’s pouring, and Harriet Watson doesn’t want to talk to them this morning.  She darts across the street and a passing car throws up spray behind her, hides her and lets her escape. As she disappears, Sherlock hears Mycroft exhale with a hiss, sees Mycroft’s fingers clench around the stem of his umbrella. And the Science of Deduction rears up and smacks Sherlock in the face.

 

“Mycroft,” and Sherlock hears the inflection in his own voice; rising at the end, denoting fear or uncertainty.

 

“Come on,” growls Mycroft, and stalks inside.

 

The hallway is too warm and close, and sweat starts to prickle at the small of Sherlock’s back. Mycroft hangs up his coat besides Sherlock’s, and together they venture inside.

 

The door to John’s room is open; the sheets and blankets are rumpled and pushed back. John’s clothes are neatly folded and placed on the chair, and his shoes sit together at a precise right angle to the wall.

 

The bathroom door is also open and there is John himself, bare-chested, hair messy, jeans hanging off of his hips. There are light scratches down his back, horizontal across his shoulder blades. And he’s staring into the bathroom mirror like he’s looking at something vile. “Push off, Sherlock,” he says, almost conversationally.

 

“John?” Sherlock takes a tentative step into the bathroom.

 

“Push off, I said,” John snaps.

 

“Your sister, Harriet. We saw her leaving. Did you-”

 

John whips around. He sets his palm dead centre of Sherlock’s chest and shoves. Sherlock staggers back and the door slams shut in his face. He slinks back to the living room, where Mycroft is sitting uncomfortably perched on the very edge of a chair, foot tapping as he twists his umbrella around and around. The loud clanking and rattling of the Victorian plumbing fills the air as the shower starts to run.

 

Sherlock drops onto the lounge and steeples his fingers together, absently calculating the sun’s position by using the angles of the light filtering through the glass in the window. It’s a much more difficult task than usual because the rain makes the light hard to see. He quickly loses interest in that and calculates the likely probabilities based on the data:

 

 

 

** Deduction One: **

Clothes taken off and placed neatly on chair

+

Shoes taken off and set by the door

=

Deliberate disrobing, something that takes time and is highly unlikely to occur in a non-consensual sexual context

 

 

 

** Deduction Two: **

No signs of physical or emotional distress on the part of Harriet

+

Horizontal light scratches on John’s back indicative of the so-called ‘missionary position’, where the partner beneath tries to pull the one mounting them into closer contact. A rape in the same sexual position would result in rough, chaotic, deep scratches on the perpetrator’s back as the victim attempts to free themself

=

Harriet willingly assuming the position beneath John, excited and enjoying the act of congress

 

 

 

** Conclusion: **

**John Watson and his sister, Harriet Watson, had consensual sexual intercourse shortly before the arrival of Sherlock and Mycroft.**

 

“Consensual,” Sherlock says curtly.

 

Mycroft hums and doesn’t reply, but his foot tapping speeds up.

 

 

 

** Therefore: **

**Incest**

 

Incest. Such a nasty little word. And going by Mycroft’s face, he’s arrived at the same conclusion.

 

“I don’t understand,” Sherlock tells him.

 

Mycroft snaps, “Some things are impossible to comprehend.”

 

 The pipes keep clanking as Sherlock scrabbles through a mountain of papers and the accumulated detritus of experiments abandoned when they got boring. He finally finds his violin, but he can’t find the bow. John would know where it is; John always knows. Instead Sherlock plucks a miserable little pizzicato on the strings as Mycroft’s foot taps and the umbrella twirls around and around.

 

There’s an especially loud clank as the water is shut off. Footsteps pad across the floor, the door opens and the smell of steam fills the room. John appears with his familiar smile.

 

“Cup of tea, anyone?”

 

“Doctor Watson!” snarls Mycroft, jerking to his feet.

 

“Mister Holmes?”

 

“Are you aware of the laws of this country concerning sexual acts between close genetic relatives?”

 

“Yes,” John says easily.

 

“Are you also aware of my position within the government that enforces those laws?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Well?”

 

“Well what, Mycroft? Of all the things that go on inside this flat- and outside of it, come to think about it- the thing that bothers you most is sex between two consenting adults? Really?”

 

As little attention Sherlock pays to the legalities of his chosen profession and his myriad of experiments, he has to concede that John has a point.

 

Mycroft’s mouth thins. He climbs to his feet, nods curtly at Sherlock, and stalks out, each footfall striking the floor with unusual force as he leaves.

 

“Tea, Sherlock?” John asks again. Sherlock goes back to plucking at the strings of his violin.

 

“No. No, John. No.”

 

“Suit yourself.”

 

**

 

Sherlock spends the night touching base with his homeless network. For reasons he can’t explain or define, he doesn’t care to be in 221B Baker Street right now. He wanders back and forth through the city, exchanging money or food for gossip and making down payments for the future. Eventually, however, as the autumn night begins to lighten he realises that he smells of unclean spaces, and he grudgingly turns towards home.

 

He comes back to find Mrs Hudson waiting for him.

 

“Sherlock,” she says, “Is something wrong with John?”

 

“No,” Sherlock lies automatically, but Mrs Hudson knows better than to believe him. She clicks her tongue disapprovingly.

 

“Oh, Sherlock, this isn’t the time for that sort of thing! There’s something terrible bothering him! He’s been cleaning all night. He’s even hoovered the entire flat three times! I’ve had complaints from next door. They are so upset about all the noise.”

 

Resisting an undignified urge to squirm, he says, “It might have been an experiment that went wrong.” Mrs Hudson’s eyes narrow in a way that usually means no fresh baked scones or biscuits for a fortnight and he hastily adds, “I’m sure that he’ll be done soon,” and moves quickly away. He’s halfway up the stairs when Mrs Hudson calls out to him.

 

“Make sure that John’s okay, Sherlock.”

 

He hesitates, and raises a hand in acknowledgement.

 

Inside the flat is a man on a mission. The place smells like furniture polish and glass cleaner. The laboratory glassware on the kitchen table has been neatly dismantled and cleaned, the bookcases nearly gleam, and all of the books have been rearranged, firstly by colour and then by size. If Sherlock had a system of organisation he would have been very annoyed indeed, but there isn’t one and John knows it. The picture frames have all been cleaned and rehung to be absolutely and perfectly level. The insides of the windows have all been polished. The curtains have been taken down and he suspects that there is a washing machine waiting for them in the near future.

 

And then there’s John himself, standing on a chair with his head stuck inside the very highest kitchen cabinet, which is such a bother to use the only things that end up in there are orphaned plastic containers, glass jars without any lids and anything that Sherlock wants to hide and John wants to pretend isn’t there.

 

At the sound of Sherlock stepping into the kitchen, John jerks his head out and glares. “I’ve got a little question for you,” he says coldly, and jumps down off the chair. He grabs a small glass jar and shoves it under Sherlock’s nose. It’s filled with a suspicious-looking white, greasy, grainy substance. “Have you been doing drugs again, Sherlock?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then what’s this?”

 

“Sodium sulphite,” Sherlock tells him, expecting that to be the end of it.

 

“Sodium sulphite,” John repeats. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that? If you’re using you can just get the hell out.”

 

“Do you even know what sodium sulphate is?”

 

There’s a beat of silence. John grimaces and places the jar on the table. “What is it doing here?”

 

“I bought it for an experiment.” Sherlock feels a sulk coming on. “It’s used for a lot of different things so I decided to keep it.”

 

John glowers at him. “Just get rid of it. I don’t want it in the flat anymore.” He turns away. “I’m going to get ready for work.”

 

“It’s just a salt,” Sherlock tells John’s retreating back, “It’s completely and utterly harmless.”

 

There’s the sound of the bathroom door shutting, and the pipes clank as the hot water is turned on. Sherlock gets up on the chair, removes a small fake panel at the back of the kitchen cabinet, and pulls out a handful of ziploc baggies and more tiny glass specimen jars, all of which are full and potentially of great interest to Inspector Lestrade and the Scotland Yard drug squad, not to mention Mycroft. He tucks them away in his coat pocket to be safely hidden in another place when John is not around to catch him.

 

The laboratory glassware has a faint but chemically significant sheen of detergent on it, inside and out. With malice aforethought Sherlock takes it to the kitchen sink to wash it off and listens, with a great deal of pleasure, to John swearing foully and at length as the water in the shower turns ice cold.

 

**

 

“Sherlock.”

 

“Harriet.”

 

As always she smiles and asks him to call her Harry, which Sherlock utterly ignores. Silently, he steps aside to let her in.

 

John’s personal succubus now appears at least once a week. Now that Sherlock knows she doesn’t bother pretending that everything’s normal. There’s always shame lurking across her shoulders and in her hands, but she keeps returning for her conjugal visits regardless. She has a marvellous knack for arriving when both Sherlock and John are in, despite the fact that she’s never, ever invited.

 

That wretched limp of John’s is beginning to make a gradual comeback. The cane hasn’t and never will, because Sherlock cut it into very small pieces and snuck it out to the bins on rubbish day. If John has missed it he hasn’t said anything.

 

Even Sherlock can see that Harriet is sucking the life out of his only friend.

 

“Cold outside, isn’t it?” she says, untying her scarf and draping it familiarly over John’s lounge chair. Her cheeks are flushed but it’s not only from cold. Beer this time, by the smell of it. Sherlock returns to his own chair, perches on the edge and glowers at her. “Autumn’s only just started and it already feels like it could snow.”

 

“The temperature is somewhat low but is still within the statistical median of yearly temperatures for the past fifty years.”

 

“Well,” says Harriet. “Well, that’s...” she trails off awkwardly and wanders over to one of the book cases. “What’s this?” she asks, pulling out a worn green quarto.

 

“An 1837 copy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s _Symphony Number 39_.” This is a lie. It’s actually a much, much more common and far less valuable 1910 edition, which Sherlock likes purely for the soft, worn texture of the paper it’s printed on. But the effect it has on Harriet is satisfying. A barely perceptible twitch flicks the corner of her eye and, with exaggerated care, she slides the volume back into place and steps away.

 

“Where’s John?” she asks.

 

“Using all of the hot water,” Sherlock replies sourly. “He appears to have known you were coming, and opted to get the obsessive compulsive bodily cleansing done in advance.”

 

Harriet flinches, and Sherlock smiles. She opens her mouth to speak and then closes it again. Then, wrapping her arms around her midriff, she hunches over and wordlessly walks away. Sherlock hears the bathroom door open and shut very carefully. In consideration to others, John and Harriet are always quiet when they’re indulging their deviancies.

 

Looking back, the signs of John’s and Harriet’s truly warped relationship have always been there. Sherlock just hadn’t known what they were; he has so little experience in these sorts of matters. Give him murder, overt rape, blackmail. Sustained consenting incestuous relationships are not something he’s seen before. It gnaws at him, this feeling of not knowing something. Especially something so important about John, his John.

 

Other than the randomness of Harriet’s appearances, once she’s inside Baker Street the rest is a strict mathematical formula:

 

 

** Arrival: **

 

  * If John isn’t immediately present and is occupied elsewhere, she will spend sixty five seconds attempting small talk with Sherlock before John comes and rescues her.
  * If John is present, there will be a polite greeting lasting no more than fifteen seconds before she is taken to John’s room.



 

** Time spent talking to John before coitus: **

 

  * Twenty two minutes if Harriet has a blood alcohol level of 0.07 or lower.
  * Seven to thirteen minutes if Harriet’s blood alcohol level is 0.08 or higher. Thankfully, she does not own a car otherwise no pedestrian in London would be safe.



 

** Time taken to complete the act of coitus: **

 

  * Twelve to nineteen minutes from the beginning of foreplay to the end of intercourse. This is significantly shorter than John’s average time of forty five to an hour and fifteen minutes with his girlfriends.



 

** Time taken for Harriet to dress and depart:  **

 

  * Three minutes if she is wearing slip on shoes, or shoes fastened with zips. Anything with laces or buckles stretches this to four and a half minutes.



 

** Duration of John’s subsequent shower: **

 

  * Eighteen minutes as opposed to his strict military seven minute showers at any other time.



 

** How many times John remakes his bed before he’s satisfied: **

 

  * A slightly unpredictable seven to nine attempts



 

** How often John cries after Harriet leaves: **

 

  * One out of four visits.



 

** How long John spends compulsively cleaning the flat after he’s cleansed himself: **

 

  * A minimum of fifty minutes.



 

 

The bathroom door opens again, and soft footsteps head towards John’s room. Sherlock’s phenomenally sensitive hearing picks up the sound of the bedsprings being depressed. If someone else were in the flat right now they’d hear nothing at all. Unfortunately, something that had always been an asset to him has become a serious deficit. No matter how discrete they are, Sherlock hears it all. It always makes him feel bilious. Sometimes he leaves and just walks and walks all night. Lately, however, he’s starting to dig his heels in. This is his flat and hell if he’s going to be chased out of it by that degenerate alcohol-addicted woman.

 

Alas, Sherlock had opted to eat solid food today. Two slices of toast and an egg for breakfast, all of which suddenly weigh like boulders in his gut. He briefly contemplates purging by vomiting and by laxatives, but the last time he’d done that John had bitched at him for days afterwards.

 

John’s laptop is sitting on the armrest of John’s favourite lounge chair. It’s closer than Sherlock’s so he snavels it and boots it up.

 

Sherlock has been devouring everything he can find on the subject of brother-sister sexual relationships: academic papers, support websites, fetish websites, even those awful little books from the fast-rising wave of what’s called ‘misery lit’. He’s trying to understand. He really is. He’s recently signed up for a forum website that discusses paraphilias and offers support to people with various forms of it. Clicking on a section marked genetic sexual attraction, Sherlock begins to read.

 

Across the room on the mantelpiece, his phone buzzes. It’s dreadfully inconvenient so he ignores it and keeps reading. It buzzes again, a number of times, with strangely timed intervals between each buzz. Absently Sherlock notes that it’s in Morse code and goes back to ignoring it. Then he hears a particularly loud moan coming from John’s room and shoves the laptop onto the floor.

 

There’s a single text message for him. It reads: _Am waiting for you out front. –MH_

 

Sherlock calculates which is more bearable: listening to John and Harriet have sex or talking to Mycroft. To his mild shock he realises that he’s probably discovered the one thing in the world that’s worse than talking to his brother; this is not a happy thought.

 

Not bothering with shoes, Sherlock grabs his coat and leaves. An ominous black limousine is parked right out front of 221. He heaves a put-upon sigh and climbs in, and the engine purrs as the limo pulls out onto the road. Mycroft is sipping at a tumbler of rather expensive whiskey and raises his eyebrows when he sees Sherlock.

 

“You’ll catch your death,” he says, looking at Sherlock’s bare feet.

 

Sherlock utterly ignores him and says instead, _“Do_ make that dreadful woman _go away.”_

 

“I can’t do that, Sherlock. You know I can’t.”

 

“Yes you can. You’ve been making people disappear for years.”

 

“Well, aside from the fact that Harriet Watson is not a risk to national security, I suspect we’d both find John’s reaction somewhat...regrettable.”

 

Sherlock frowns. “Just make it look like an accident.”

 

“John would still think we were behind it. In fact, I’ve people watching Harriet around the clock purely for that reason. There are a great many dangerous situations that a self-medicating manic depressive alcoholic can get themselves into, and it’s providing a very interesting training exercise for some of my younger, less experienced operatives. Aside from Her Majesty and the cabinet, Harriet is probably the best protected woman in London.”

 

“Let her get into an accident,” Sherlock sulks, “John would be better off without her.”

 

“He’d never forgive you,” Mycroft says quietly, “And he would leave you. I’m certain neither of us wants that.”

 

“It wouldn’t be my fault.”

 

“But he’d still think it.”

 

As much as Sherlock dislikes admitting it, he has no choice but to concede the point.

 

“Sometimes he cries,” Sherlock announces, apropos of nothing.

 

Mycroft sighs and finishes the last of the whiskey. The soiled tumbler disappears into a clever little drawer. “That’s because he is ashamed and it hurts him.”

 

“Then why does he do it?”

 

Closing his eyes, Mycroft says, “Doing regrettable things for the ones we love is intrinsic to the human species.”

 

“That’s ridiculous,” Sherlock tells him.

 

“I know,” agrees Mycroft, with a strange, sad smile.

 

“I don’t think Harriet likes it either.”

 

They lapse into silence. The limo glides smoothly through the traffic, following an almost perfect circular route. Finally Mycroft sighs and shifts in his seat.

 

“Do try not to make it any worse, Sherlock. Don’t experiment on them, or try to manipulate them.” Sherlock scowls and Mycroft frowns back at him. “I mean it. John will know if you do, and Harriet probably would as well. Appearances aside, she’s actually extremely intelligent and very, very good at interpersonal relations. She’s also rather ruthless, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. If it weren’t for the alcoholism I’d consider her an excellent candidate for my department.”

 

“Make her stop,” Sherlock says quietly.

 

“You know I can’t.”

 

“It’s illegal. Arrest them or something.”

 

“They’re consenting adults. It’s actually quite difficult to prosecute. And even if it were something I could do, it’d only serve to drive John away.”

 

Mycroft’s mobile beeps. He pulls it out of his pocket, presses a few buttons before tucking it away. “She’s left,” he says, “You can go back now.”

 

“By the way,” Sherlock says, “Why have you bugged the flat again?”

 

“What makes you think I’ve bugged it?”

 

“Because you buzzed ‘ _Symphony Number 39’_ in Morse Code on my mobile.”

 

“I happen to rather like the piece, as it happens.” Mycroft smiles. “Don’t pout, Sherlock. You know that figuring out where all the devices are and then disabling them will keep you occupied for hours. And we both know how terribly bored you get.”

 

The limo pulls up outside of 221b Baker Street and Sherlock clambers out. “So why have you bugged the flat again?” he asks, leaning on the door.

 

“Goodbye, Sherlock,” Mycroft tells him. He leans forward and pulls the door shut from the inside. Sherlock is left standing on the curb, barefooted and annoyed.

 

He tosses up going for a walk or going upstairs. In the end he opts to return to the flat as his feet are rapidly going numb and he’s likely to be unaware of any cuts or bruises he’d sustain wandering out in the dark.

 

The flat is suspiciously quiet as Sherlock walks up the stairs. When he opens the door the first thing he sees is John, sitting bolt upright in Sherlock’s chair, with the stolen laptop on his knees.

 

“What’s this?” John says very quietly.

 

Sherlock frowns. “What’s what?”

 

“This!” John jumps up. He shoves the laptop into Sherlock’s hands. On the screen is the paraphilia forum, with the open thread on genetic sexual attraction.

 

“Oh,” says Sherlock. This is definitely not good.

 

“How can you...” John is actually trembling. “How can you do this to me? You, of all people? You’re the sociopath. Why do you care?”

 

“Because it’s wrong,” Sherlock tells him.

 

Sherlock is so taken by surprise that he can’t think to fight back before he’s thrown up against a wall. The laptop falls to the floor with a nasty-sounding crack.

 

“Stop it!” shouts John, “This is sick! How can you do this to me? Are you trying to make me feel any worse than I do already? Because you can’t. There’s nothing you can do to make me feel worse. Nothing.”

 

Sherlock blinks, genuinely confused. “So why do you do it, then?”

 

It looks like there’s something dying in John’s eyes. “Fuck you, Sherlock,” says John, “Fuck you.”

 

He turns and walks away. He grabs his coat and leaves, shutting the door very carefully and gently behind him.

 

The floor’s very cold as Sherlock plonks himself down on his rear. This is one case that he simply cannot solve. Propping his chin up on his hand, he steps into his memory palace and wanders about, looking in every room. But while there are many marvellous things there to be seen and enjoyed, there’s absolutely nothing that can help him understand.

 

**

 

The whole wretched, grubby business carries on. Sherlock doesn’t complain about the bruises he’d got when John shoved him up against the wall, and John doesn’t bitch about having to get his laptop screen replaced. It’s like walking on glass; Sherlock is constantly trying to watch what he says and does, and John is constantly waiting for the opportunity to pick a fight. The comfortable feeling Sherlock used to have around John is gone.

 

Harriet keeps visiting. John keeps taking her up to his room and cleaning like a demon when she’s gone. But he always neglects to do his teeth, which is quite strange. This small detail sticks in Sherlock’s head, and Sherlock hasn’t figured out yet why it’s so important, only that it is. There’s some subtle defect in his sight. It’s like the laws of light bend themselves around John, so that Sherlock cannot, will not, ever see him clearly, even when he’s standing in the sunlight.

 

Sherlock can’t explain why his skin crawls all the time.

 

And John is limping worse than ever.

 

Perhaps a direct approach is in order. A little one on one question and answer time.

 

He finds an incest survivor support group in his area, constructs a story about a long suppressed memory regarding his molestation by a particularly loathed aunt and contacts the owner/moderator. The moderator, whose deep, resonant voice, slightly scratchy at the higher notes indicates that she is both overweight and a former heavy smoker, insists on meeting Sherlock face to face in order to vet him before introducing him to the rest of the group. This is vexing but by no means surprising.

 

They meet in a busy café. Booths of sticky vinyl provide some measure of privacy but there are enough people coming and going that the both of them can call for help if things get nasty. She is ready and waiting for him as he comes in, sitting face to the door in a booth that’s close to the  register. All very classic defence mechanisms. Sherlock heartily approves.  The moderator herself is barrel-chested, crew cut and wearing masculine clothing. It’s immediately obvious that she’s a member of the lesbian ‘butch’ subculture, where gender identity is mistaken for sexual identity. F or his part, Sherlock has dressed very carefully in cheap clothing, slightly worn but well-cared for. He’s run gel through his hair and swapped his blue scarf for a red in a cheap, cotton polyester mix. He changes his voice to something a bit lower class and slightly exaggerates the way he moves, to give an impression of clumsiness. With passion, with shame, with trembling lips and a threat of tears, Sherlock spins his sad tale, an excellent performance as ever he’d done, and sits back to wait for the moderator to begin comforting him. He’s completely taken by surprise when she gives him a long, hard look, glaring at him with flat dislike.

 

 “You’re lying to me,” she says coldly.

 

“I’m not,” Sherlock protests, injecting the perfect amount of indignation into his voice, “I’m not lying. I came here for help.” He bites his lower lip, opens his eyes wide, and rocks backwards while simultaneously hunching his shoulders. “I came here for help,” he adds, his voice catching, “I came here for help and you’re making all of these horrible accusations and-”

 

“Cut the crap,” growls the woman. In that instant she resembles Mummy so closely that Sherlock’s jaws slam shut so fast he almost bites his tongue. “I don’t have any time for sick little voyeurs and fetishists and predators. And those in the group have seen enough of those. Either tell me what you really want or fuck off.”

 

Sherlock stares at her. She stares back, utterly unconcerned as she sips at her latte. And grudgingly, Sherlock accepts that he’s going to have to be truthful. Sherlock _hates_ being truthful.

 

“My friend is having regular consensual sex with his biological sister,” he says, at the exact moment a waitress walks past. She twitches violently, making her almost drop the tray full of dirty crockery, and she shoots Sherlock a look of utter horror before scuttling off with her clanking burden. He watches her retreating back wistfully; she’s exactly the sort of person he could spend _hours_ terrorising.

 

“Go on,” says the moderator.

 

“I believe that it’s been going on for some time. Certainly long before we met.”

 

“Sexual relationships between siblings are not unknown.” The corner of her mouth flicks. “From what I gather, it’s often seen by the practitioners as just as fulfilling as their normal sexual relationships. Although frankly, it’s beyond me,” she adds, looking like she’s stepped in something particularly vile. “If this is the case, then probably the only things you can do are to accept it or end the friendship.”

 

“Yes, but J-”

 

“Don’t tell me his name,” the moderator breaks in, “I don’t want to know.”

 

“He isn’t happy. He actually seems guilty about it. I’ve been trying to understand, but he threw me against a wall when he found me reading an article about it,” Sherlock says indigently.

 

“He make a habit of throwing you against walls?”

 

“No. He does get really angry about me using his computer, though.”

 

“So you…were reading this article on his computer?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You’re really not all there are you?” she sighs. Sherlock blinks at her in genuine confusion.

 

“Anything else you can tell me?”

 

“Yes. His sister is a lesbian. Which makes it even more difficult to understand.”

 

“Don’t you mean she’s a bisexual?”

 

“Lesbian,” Sherlock says firmly, thinking of all the little observations and behavioural quirks and all the little fragments that have shown up in John’s conversations. “Har-”

 

“Don’t say her name!”

 

“-she’s never been in a sexual relationship with any male, not even as a teenager. Except for J- her brother.”

 

“Know her well, do you?”

 

“No. We’ve only spoken together briefly.”

 

The moderator fixes him with an unfriendly smile. “So how do you know all that, then?”

 

Sherlock stares at her. Then, the information comes out in a torrent: where she lives, where she works, how her favourite brand of deodorant had sold out in the supermarket and she’s making do with another until her next payday, her favourite show on tellie and her peculiar aversion to carrots. He also adds a few details of where and when she’d been molested, taking care to add some details that she’d likely never told to another living soul.

 

As the speech comes to an end, the moderator stares at him for a good ten seconds. Then, with slow deliberate movements, she pours out a glass of water, takes a sip and matter-of-factly throws it in his face.

 

“Have you been following me?” she asks as Sherlock splutters and tries to wipe himself down with a napkin.

 

“Of course not,” he says irritably, “I deduced it.”

 

“How?” and Sherlock tells her. And after that the moderator pours out another glass of water and throws it in his face as well. He squawks at her in outrage while she calmly taps out something on her mobile phone. “What’s the square root of 1.079048?”

 

“1.03877235234675,” he glowers at her.

 

Apparently the answer is the right one, because she sighs and puts her phone away again. “Well,” she says, “That explains it.”

 

“Explains what?”

 

“What you’re doing here.” He stares at her in genuine confusion and the moderator shakes her head. “Look: from what you’ve told me- and this is only a guess, genius, because I have never met these people and I never wish to- this sounds like it all comes down to power.” She stands up. “Well, that’s that. I wish I could say that I enjoyed your company but I haven’t. So I shall bid you farewell, and if I ever see you again- especially if you show up at the support group- I’ll wring your bloody skinny neck until you pass out, piss on you, and set you on fire just as you come to. Understand?”

 

“Not really, no. What do you mean by power?”

 

The moderator snorts. She spins on her heel and disappears, leaving Sherlock soaking wet and staring at the meal she’d left him to pay for. There’s a rather burly looking waiter standing by the door. Sherlock could get past him easy if he wanted to run out on the bill. But Sherlock and John come here for breakfast often and John would be upset if the owners were angry with Sherlock and wouldn’t let them in.

 

In the end he grudgingly pays the bill and walks back to Baker Street. On his way a chilly wind picks up and his sodden scarf is suddenly icy. He takes it off and his throat is bare to the cold and it seems to slip through his skin, wiggling its way into the hollow between his collar bones and rattling around, lost and lonely in an empty space inside of him that he’d never before realised was there.

 

**

 

John is getting ready for a late shift at the clinic. When Sherlock walks in, he’s pawing through the lounge room detritus in his vest, looking for his shirt.

 

“Have you seen where I left my shirt?”

 

“Which one?”

 

“The blue one.”

 

The air smells like vodka, the insanely alcoholic type you could use in place of methylated spirits.

 

“It’s on the chair behind you,” Sherlock says. John spins in place, not once, but twice. He doesn’t see it, draped across the back of the kitchen chair.

 

“Sherlock,” John snaps, “Stop fucking around, will you?”

 

Sherlock growls. He pushes past John and grabs the garment, shoving it aggressively under the doctor’s nose. John blinks. And blinks again. He gingerly takes it from Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock flounces over to the lounge and flings himself down and squirms until he’s comfortable. His feet end up where his head should be, and vice versa. He glares at upside-down John, who has the decency to look embarrassed.

 

“Right. I’ll just...I’ll...” John trails off. He clears his throat and puts on the shirt, goes to button it up and realises that it’s on inside out. He fumbles it off, looking thoroughly wretched.

 

“Are you sure you should be working today?”

 

“I’ll be fine,” John snaps.

 

“I smell vodka. Have you been drinking?”

 

“Of course not. That was-” John realises what he was about to say, and backtracks. “I decided to have a small one,” he says, “And I spilt it.” It’s a pretty pathetic lie even by John’s standards. Sherlock doesn’t bother replying. He stares. John puts his shirt back on, the right way this time, his hands shaking worse than ever.

 

In the bad telemovies that Sherlock’s seen, this would be the moment of catharsis. Sherlock would say something passionate and concerned, with an avowal of affection and caring. John would bluster at first and then break down. Sherlock would comfort him, and together they’d confront the wretched Harriet, user and abuser most foul. John would tell her that he was leaving, she’d beg him to stay. And John would take Sherlock’s hand and they’d walk together, away and into a bright new future. The end credits would roll. Maybe there’d even be a little coda after those were finished; a thirty second portrait of their wonderful life together. But this isn’t a bad telemovie, this is John and this is Sherlock and John keeps saying yes when he should say no. Sherlock doesn’t know how to comfort anyone, and John would never accept it even if Sherlock could.

 

“I’m going to work,” John finally says. He finishes with his shirt, grabs his satchel and stalks out. The door shuts before Sherlock can tell him that the shirt’s now lopsided; all of the buttons are one hole down from where they should be.

 

There’s the sound of footsteps on the stairs and that’s it. The flat is quiet, aside from the hum of the refrigerator, and the ceiling really is dreadfully dull to look at so Sherlock squirms upright again. He contemplates the day ahead. There is no new case, not even the promise of one. And, he realises, even if there were it’d be not nearly as fascinating as the enigma that is John and Harriet. It’s a nasty, grimy, grubby sort of business that makes Sherlock’s skin crawl in a peculiar way, but it’s fascinating too. It’s like the time when he was eight, where he picked a hole in his thigh to see what it would be like and made it larger every day. It’d become infected to the point he could barely walk and smelt like death, but he’d kept at it compulsively just to see what would happen next. Mycroft had told Mummy on him and Mummy had called some doctors. They’d sedated him and strapped him down to the bed to let the wound heal without him opening it up again. That had been the very first taste of mind-altering drugs for Sherlock. It had been wonderful.

 

What’s between John and Harriet is just like the old wound on Sherlock’s thigh; crippling, foul smelling and disgusting but utterly fascinating. He wants to pick at it and see what comes oozing out.

 

It’s decided, then. He’s going to keep probing, although considering John’s reaction to Sherlock’s reading materials on the subject, it’s probably best if John doesn’t know. Besides, he really hadn’t looked capable enough to so much as buy milk by himself, let alone get to the surgery without causing himself injury. It’d be so boring if John gets hurt and has to go stay in the hospital. Even allowing for the fact that the morgue would be so deliciously and conveniently close by.

 

**

 

The good doctor is fascinating in many ways, but like the rest of the human race he can be depressingly predictable. Every day, every single day he walks the exact same route to the tube station. Sherlock has followed him many times for various reasons and has never got caught yet. It’s even easier than usual; John stumbles along, perfectly oblivious to absolutely everyone and everything else. Then he does something that’s surprising; instead of turning right he turns left. He’s not going to take the tube today. And when he walks straight past three bus stops and a taxi stand, it’s obvious that he’s not going to work either. The press of people thins out and Sherlock has to keep dropping further and further back not to be seen, and is almost too far away to see John walk into a public park, small but thick with trees and places to hide. Sherlock is now able to get a little closer, to catch a glimpse of John’s face. It’s utterly blank. Looks like a corpse, and not in an interesting what-kind-of-experiments-can-I-run sort of way.

 

There’s a little duck pond and several empty benches. John drops down onto one, covering his blank face with his hands. There are several species of duck- Mandarin Duck, _Aix galericulata,_ Tufted Duck, _Aythya fuligula,_ and Mallard Duck _, Anas platyrhynchos-_ and one lonely goose _-_ Greylag Goose, _Anser anser-_ on the pond. They float hopefully towards him but then suddenly lose interest. They seem to know that they will not get food from him. It’s obvious that he’s been here before a number of times, and has never fed them.

 

Sherlock leans against a tree and observes. He hears Mycroft’s distinctive footfall behind him and doesn’t turn around.

 

“Every day for the past thirteen days, for a minimum of nine hours at a time. He’ll usually move around lunchtime, to visit those shops to eat before returning to the same place.”

 

“He’s not going to work at all?” asks Sherlock, frowning in bemusement.

 

“No,” says Mycroft flatly. Together, they silently watch. Eventually, John’s hands slip from his face and he slouches against the back of the bench, head lolling back so he can stare at the sky. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

 

Sherlock scowls, hunches down in his coat and refuses to answer.

 

“He’s burning through his savings rather fast,” Mycroft adds, tapping that wretched umbrella of his against his thigh. “I’ve been intervening enough so that he hasn’t been fired- yet, that is- but I’m running out of ways to do this without him realising.”

 

“What’s wrong with him knowing about it?”

 

Mycroft sighs in the way that means Sherlock has asked one of those stupid questions about something soft and _organic_ that’s blindingly obvious to a normal, _boring_ person. “At this rate,” he says, not bothering to answer, “You rent will not be paid on time or even at all. To this end I’m releasing certain monies from your trust fund- which, if you don’t use them appropriately,” immediately slapping down the instant calculation of how much laboratory equipment and lovely coloured shirts Sherlock could buy with it, “Will be the only money you’ll receive for another two years, so do be sensible about it.”

 

They watch John some more. Sherlock’s eyes are sharp enough to see him blink, but that’s the only movement he makes.

 

“If he has been having sex with Harriet for a long time-”

 

“My enquiries suggest that they started approximately when John was fourteen years of age,” Mycroft interjects.

 

“-then why is he acting so distressed now?”

 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mycroft smiles grimly, “This is the first time that he thinks that anyone’s known about his dirty little secret. Several others have guessed or suspected over the years, but have all been too uncomfortable to raise the issue.”

 

Sherlock doesn’t understand that either, but he keeps his mouth shut.

 

A twig cracks under Mycroft’s exquisitely expensive shoe as he turns to go. “It’ll all come to a head soon, you’ll see,” he says.

 

“And what will happen then?”

 

“I don’t know. It’s really up to John.”

 

This is something that Sherlock _does_ understand. Even he can see that his friend is teetering at the edge. What that edge is Sherlock can’t say, but it’s there and knowing that it’s there makes him uneasy. If John falls he could break. And the thought of broken John makes Sherlock want to tear open the old scar on his thigh and let the blood and pus flow and never stop.

 

**

 

John eventually scrapes himself up and goes back to work, for real this time. He responds to the sudden money in Sherlock’s bank account- which John has full access to so he can do the bills and rent and other dull things that Sherlock doesn’t care to bother himself over- with poorly hidden relief and pays Mrs Hudson without telling Sherlock that there had ever been a problem. As he limps to something approaching normal functioning, John’s state of mind paradoxically gets worse. The patients at the surgery are all being looked after and treated in a satisfactory manner, Mycroft reports, and John is able to run simple chores before and after work. But after he gets home he shuts down. He stares at the tellie with utterly no comprehension or awareness of what’s on it. Even when there’s a show on about the war or the military there’s no response, not a sign of his customary irritation at the inevitable inaccuracies and mistakes. Sherlock briefly contemplates putting something graphically pornographic or violent on just to get a reaction but he decides that he doesn’t care to deal with whatever form that reaction might come in. He tells himself that it’s because it’d just be pointlessly noisy or something like; he doesn’t want to admit that, for the first time in a very long time, he’s starting to become scared of another human being; and that this human being is the only friend Sherlock has ever had.

 

Harriet keeps visiting. And John keeps cleaning. And Sherlock has never wanted to hit someone so badly since he was eight and tried to beat up Michelle Brown from the class two grades above his because she wouldn’t give him her ice cream when he demanded it from her. But even he knows that if he tried to attack Harriet, John would come to her defence, always, even though Harriet is hurting John and has been for a very long time. And the thought of John hitting Sherlock makes Sherlock’s lungs seize up in a strange and very uncomfortable way.

 

One day Mrs Hudson is waiting for him as he comes home. Gripping his sleeve very tightly, she hisses in his ear: “Get rid of her. Get rid of that horrible woman. She shouldn’t be here.” When she sees the surprise in Sherlock’s eyes, she sighs and strokes his face. “I’m not blind, Sherlock.”

 

“She’s hurting John,” Sherlock blurts out, “But Mycroft won’t let me do anything. Is he…not good today?”

 

“Oh no, he’s in an excellent mood,” replies Mrs Hudson. “That’s why I’m so worried about him.” She whirls and disappears before Sherlock can ask her what she means.

 

Upstairs is something that Sherlock’s been missing: an untidy flat. Not excessively so, just some books scattered here and about on the floor, the chairs at the kitchen table slightly askew, a pan with a crust of egg in the bottom left to soak. The direction of the carpet filaments in front of the door indicates that it hasn’t been vacuumed in the past twenty four hours. John appears with his best shirt on and a smile on his face, smelling like his favourite aftershave.

 

“I’m going out,” he announces, “I won’t be back until late. Have you seen my shoes?”

 

“One is thrown under your bed; the other is wedged between the left back foot of your dresser and the wall.”

 

John goes to his room and comes out in short order. “Don’t wait up,” he says.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“Out.”

 

“Where?”

 

“Sherlock,” John says patiently, “I am, in fact, an adult. I don’t need to tell you what my plans are. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

 

The door closes behind him and Sherlock flings himself on the lounge. There’s a thick academic textbook on arson sitting on the coffee table, but it’s just out of reach and he really couldn’t be bothered getting up. Sherlock stretches his arms over his head and contemplates the ceiling. John is happy for the first time in a long time, happy enough to go on the pull. Odds are Harriet will not be visiting any time soon, and that’s what’s prompted John’s good mood. It’s nice but unexpected. Sherlock likes unexpected. It’s usually interesting, depending on how long it takes him to figure out what’s behind it. Sherlock briefly brightens at the idea that Harriet has somehow hurt herself and is safely confined to a hospital or a rehab facility but just as soon as he contemplates this he dismisses it. John would be upset if something had happened to her, but he isn’t upset, he is obviously happy. So the likely conclusion is that she has gone on some sort of extended journey, possibly for work or for pleasure.

 

It strikes Sherlock that it would be useful to know where and why, so he boots up his laptop- he’s been very careful to only use his lately- and clicks on the information bundle that he’d downloaded from John’s computer some months ago and hadn’t been interested in going through before. It’s a log of all processes and one of these processes is the web browser. This gives both John’s online email address and the address of anyone who he has written an email to on his computer. This is a large number of addresses, most of which have been entered only a few times but there are some that have been entered often. One address in particular has a long list of dates and entries assigned to it and Sherlock reasons that this is the one most likely to belong to Harriet.

 

He wiggles to make himself comfortable and starts to hack into the service provider. This is actually quite difficult; he’s a genius but so are the programmers who have built the software and who continuously monitor and patch it precisely because of people like Sherlock. It turns out to be rather a challenge, and an interesting one. By the time he’s into the system it’s been a number of hours and it’s gone dark but for the glow of the screen. He locates Harriet’s email data string on the server and clicks on it. It is full of banalities; captioned cats, surveys, jokes, All Glory to the Hypnotoad, DO YOU LIKE BANANAS, BITCH?! Disgusted and annoyed he clicks through it regardless. Then he realises: the boring, dull chaos is rather cleverly designed to be precisely that. Buried within the memes and quizzes and dreadful puns are the communications that matter. If anyone could figure out how to hack the account it’s likely they’d give up in frustration at the seeming lack of interesting content. Sherlock brightens and keeps wading through the muck to find the diamonds. And then he finds it. It’s from Harriet’s estranged wife Clara. It’s quite long and badly spelled too, but it’s exactly what Sherlock has been trying to find.

 

 _Harry,_ it reads, _we_ _need to talk about John…_

 

**

 

“Sherlock!”

 

The strings are taunt and sweet and the bow has just the perfect amount of resin.

 

“Sherlock!”

 

The closest Sherlock has ever come to falling in love is with Johann Bach.

 

_“Sherlock!”_

 

Unfortunately, it’s hard to fall in love when Mrs Hudson is hammering on the stairwell wall, screaming his name.

 

“Go away, I’m busy!”

 

“Sherlock, get down here!”

 

“I said I was busy!”

 

“It’s John!”

 

“Fine,” Sherlock snaps. He sets his violin down and stalks out. Mrs Hudson is at the front door, as is John, as is a rather flustered looking cabbie. The cabbie sees him and flashes a broad smile.

 

“All right, Sherlock?”

 

Sherlock doesn’t reply. He’s too preoccupied with John. John, whose blood alcohol level is apparently reaching Harriet proportions. He’s not quite unconscious but he’s working on it. The cabbie takes John’s other arm and together, the cabbie and Sherlock manage to get the extremely drunk doctor up the stairs. Mrs Hudson precedes them, opening the door and bustling over to the lounge to clear it of Sherlock’s computer and plump the cushions. This is where they dump John. The cabbie grunts a goodnight and hastily leaves, not before giving Sherlock’s shoulder a comradely slap hard enough to bruise.

 

The tap runs and Mrs Hudson appears with a glass of water, which she pours down John’s throat. He splutters and coughs and water goes all over his shirt. She dabs fruitlessly at his face with a tissue before going into the kitchen to fetch a towel. Sherlock drops down on his hunches, folds his hands together and observes.

 

John says, or rather slurs, “Y bin cripy gi,” which Sherlock interprets as “You’re being creepy again.”

 

“I’m studying the resemblance.”

 

“Resemblance?” Or “resblense”, to be more precise.

 

“Between you and your sister,” Sherlock says.

 

Apparently this is the wrong thing to say because at this point, John vomits all over himself.

 

_“Mrs Hudson!”_

 

“No need to shout, Sherlock, I’m right here.” With brisk, no nonsense commands, she gets Sherlock to lift John up so she can peel off the soiled jumper. Sherlock hopes vaguely that she’ll strip John’s torso completely bare so that he can finally see John’s bullet wound scar, but all she does is unbutton John’s shirt and underneath that is a vest anyway. Together they manage to get his belt off and turn him on his side. Mrs Hudson puts a towel under John’s head and a resentful Sherlock is sent to fetch a bucket. John giggles, mutters something that has no resemblance to the English language, and passes out.

 

“How distasteful,” Sherlock says, wrinkling his aristocratic nose.

 

“People usually are when they’re drunk,” Mrs Hudson wearily replies. “I’m going to bed. Make sure you check on him regularly.”

 

“I don’t want to.”

 

“Do it anyway,” she says sharply, “Unless you want him to choke to death in his sleep. Goodnight Sherlock.” The door shuts behind her with a click.

 

Sherlock heaves a put-upon sigh and turns the lights off. He settles in on the floor next to the lounge where John is sleeping (being very careful to place himself out of the way of any vomit) with his laptop and reads Clara’s email to Harriet yet again:

 

_I know that John started it and that it hurt you badly. These things always do, they stay with you your entire life. But Harry, past a certain point the excuses run out and it ultimately doesn’t matter how it began, only that you’re still letting it poison your entire life. You’re still allowing him to manipulate you into doing things that you know are wrong. Do you think I don’t know why you drink? That you do it to make the pain stop?_

_I’m not saying that this is something that you should just get over. Because you can’t. No one can. What happened in the past shapes the people we are today._

 

It continues in this maudlin, sentimental way for one thousand, four hundred and ninety three words. This Clara seems to think that it is all John’s fault when patiently it isn’t.

 

_This is something that’s played out ever since monkeys became human. Men make victims of women. They rape us and subjugate us and are rarely, if ever, held accountable for it. And we suffer so much for it and are always blamed for our own victimhood. The world is so, so much kinder to men than it is to women. Men never suffer the way we do._

 

Clara appears to be oblivious to the statistics regarding sexual abuse perpetrated on male minors and adults, and the continuous but perpetually ignored criticism regarding the near-complete lack of equivalent support services for male victims, and virtually zero conviction rates for perpetrators of sexual assault against males of just about any age. Sherlock is always annoyed when people make statements that are factually incorrect. Also, humans derived from an ape-like ancestor, not a monkey ancestor. It’s a simple error that irritates him immensely; it’s almost as bad as those people who call spiders ‘bugs’.

 

_Don’t let John hurt you anymore. Don’t let John manipulate you. Don’t let him force you into having sex. I know you love him. But you shouldn’t._

 

Sherlock scowls.

 

_Please stop drinking, and please stop going to him, and please stop letting him use you._

 

This Clara woman is obviously a tiresome individual who is too ignorant to grasp the concept of information derived from independent and impersonal surveys. Absolutely no observation skills and she’s too stupid to know basic biology as well. How vexatious and annoying.

 

Sherlock gets up and goes to his room. He returns with a mini USB stick, the contents of which would make Julian Assange whimper incoherently with lust and Bill Gates whimper incoherently with terror. With unholy glee, Sherlock sets about tracing and hacking into every computer that the Clara woman has so much as gone within ten metres of in the past three months and uploading every worm, Trojan and virus that’s been written since the silicon microchip was invented. He is careful to make sure that the computers can be cleaned, at least eventually. After all, he wouldn’t want to go to so much trouble to stuff Clara’s email programmes and hard drives with as much creative and extremely illegal pornography that he can find without anyone else not being able to appreciate it.

 

John shifts slightly in his sleep and his arm slides off the lounge, hand coming to rest on the back of Sherlock’s neck. Sherlock doesn’t move away and John’s hand stays there all night as Sherlock works, heavy and warm.

 

**

 

In the morning John wakes up with a foul hangover and staggers into the shower, and then into his own room to sleep some more. An unusually considerate housemate, he only snores when he’s been drinking and given that he’d almost drunk himself into alcohol poisoning last night he has a proportionally loud snore today. The curtains flutter, the glass in the windows trembles and plaster dust sifts down from the ceiling. There is absolutely no way that racket can be drowned out with either violin music or bad television so Sherlock drums his fingers and stares at the sleet striking the windows. Sleet by itself is bad enough, but sleet accompanied with a strong wind is something not even he wants to walk through. As a result, Sherlock is stuck inside the flat with a fast growing headache courtesy of John’s auditory assault and he is _bored._ He’s already hunted down and destroyed the listening devices that Mycroft’s spooks had planted. He’s read every single piece of literary material in the place, up to and including John’s ridiculous trashy tabloid papers and the ingredients lists on all of the tins and biscuit packets.

 

And now he’s left with the Clara woman’s email wandering through his skull. This is both aggravating and inconvenient. He contemplates doing something creative and destructive to either her body or the rest of her property, but concludes that doing either so soon after sabotaging her computer would only draw suspicion. Harriet is also an inviting target but remains an impractical one for the reasons so effectively outlined by Mycroft.

 

Sherlock winces at a ridiculously loud snort as John turns over in his sleep.

 

Sod _this_. Hesitating only to grab his coat and scarf, Sherlock is out of the door in seven seconds flat.

 

Sleet slaps him across the face as he steps out into the street. Ducking and diving, he calculates the direction of the wind and the positions of all the little protected nooks along the buildings, and as a result, manages to arrive at a taxi stand marginally less wet than anyone else headed there as well. He cuts in front of a cadaverously skinny woman in too tight clothing, American, specifically from New York going by the hair cut and the earrings, and jumps into the taxi she had previously thought was hers.

 

“The shoes are fakes!” Sherlock yells over his shoulder. “The stitching is all wrong!” The skinny woman swears foully at him as he shuts the door in her face. She punches the window and the driver winces and pulls swiftly out from the curb, probably to avoid a fight breaking out.

 

Inside, Sherlock sighs and tugs mournfully at his saturated coat. If this one gets damaged it’ll be ages before he can figure out a way to steal another or worse, actually have to buy one.

 

“Where to?” the driver asks, and Sherlock rattles off Lestrade’s address. He’s only been there a few times; he’s broken in out of curiosity or even sheer boredom. Lestrade’s an insufferable git but the inspector has his uses and it’ll be interesting to see if he looks the same when he’s not working. And he usually takes home notes from his cases, which comes in handy if there’s anything he refuses to share with Sherlock.

 

In very short order, Sherlock is dropped at the door of a modest little house in a modest little part of London. He hammers on the door for twenty seven seconds until Lestrade answers.

 

“Sherlock, what the hell!”

 

“I decided to drop by, hope you don’t mind.” He shoves his way in and takes off his coat and scarf, hanging them on the hooks in the hallway. Lestrade’s house looks the same as it did the other times, only with the inspector himself present, yelping protests and empty threats that Sherlock completely ignores.

 

Lestrade is a wreck; his hair is flattened on one side, sticking up on the other. His eyes are bloodshot and swollen, there’s dried saliva in the corner of his mouth and there’s a slight but perceptible sway from side to side as he stands, the effects of prolonged exhaustion. Sherlock remembers seeing a report on the news about a murder-suicide on the news, a young couple, open and shut case, but with three missing small children. The police department hadn’t called Sherlock and Sherlock hadn’t bothered to volunteer his services; the children had obviously been murdered by the mother, thrown into the water in a melt-water swollen canal before she had taken a knife and slit her husband’s throat, and then her own. It’d just been a case of systematically dredging until the bodies were found. The sleet, freezing rain and the resulting rapid water flow in the canal had hindered this process, making Lestrade and the rest of his team work for seventy hours straight. Time consuming but simple and easy to solve. Completely uninteresting.

 

“Sherlock!” Lestrade yells, “Stop going through my things!” He lunges forward and grabs the sheaf of papers from Sherlock’s hand. “Why are you here?”

 

“John snores.”

 

“What?”

 

“I said that John snores.”

 

“What the hell does that mean?”

 

“When he is hung over, he snores,” explains Sherlock.

 

The detective stares at Sherlock. Sherlock stares back.

 

“I can’t cope with this,” there’s a definite note of desperation in Lestrade’s voice. “I’m going back to bed.” Sherlock lunges forward and blocks off the exit. Lestrade halts. He shakes his head. “I can’t cope with this,” he says again. He turns around and heads back to the kitchen. Which is trashed. There are all sorts of interesting paperwork absolutely _everywhere_ , and Sherlock would very much like to get his hands on some of it. In this unholy mess there’s bound to be at least _something_ that isn’t boring. “Don’t even think about it,” Lestrade snarls without turning around. He’s ratting through the refrigerator and eventually comes up with a milk carton. He turns it around to see that the date is expired, opens it anyway and sniffs. Apparently it’s still acceptable so he plonks himself down at the table and begins drinking from the carton. With a dramatic gesture he sweeps the entire tabletop clear of paper and motions for Sherlock to sit down. “Why are you here, Sherlock?” Lestrade asks again.

 

“I keep telling you,” Sherlock says sulkily, “John snores, it’s too loud for me to watch television or play my violin. It’s too cold and too wet to go anywhere and there’s no new case and I’m _bored._ I need something to do.” His eyes zero in on a piece of paper that Lestrade missed.

 

“No,” Lestrade spits, snatching it away. He throws it to the floor with the rest. “Find something to do. Talk to that horrible skull of yours. Calculate pi squared, learn Welsh-”

 

“I already speak Welsh,” Sherlock cuts in.

 

 _“-I don’t care,_ I haven’t slept in three days, I can barely stand and you’ve just barged into my house going on about John snoring! What the _hell,_ Sherlock? Even by your standards this is scraping the bottom of the barrel! I’m not here for your entertainment!”

 

“John’s snoring because he’s hung over,” says Sherlock quietly. “He got drunk last night.”

 

“And that has what to do this?”

 

“Harriet didn’t go away on holiday like she was supposed to. So he got drunk.”

 

Lestrade groans and buries his head in his arms. The milk carton falls on its side and the last remaining lonely droplets spill onto the table. “Who’s Harriet?”

 

“His sister.”

 

“So why would he get drunk because she didn’t go away on holiday?”

 

“Because it means that she’ll keep wanting to have sex with him.”

 

Lestrade goes very, very still. “What?”

 

“Harriet makes John have sex with her.” When Lestrade doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even twitch, Sherlock adds, “At least once a week. Sometimes twice.” When Lestrade doesn’t immediately answer Sherlock thinks, for one blissful second, that the detective understands; that maybe, by some statistical improbability that he might even come up with a way to destroy Harriet that neither Mycroft nor Sherlock have thought of.         

 

The muscles of Lestrade’s shoulders and arms are bunched up in knots. As he slowly raises his head the expression on his face is murderous. He looks Sherlock straight in the eye and there is nothing but pure rage on his face. “The fuck?” Lestrade says, cold and furious, “The fuck is this shit? This is the worst,” he breaks off to breathe hard through his nose, “I swear that this is the worst thing you’ve ever said or done. Even worse than the body parts or what you did to Sally or what you’re doing to the Hooper woman right now. _I haven’t finished!”_ he screams when Sherlock tries to interrupt. “This is fucking sick and fucked up and you come to here on today of all days saying this…awful, awful thing? Right now? You barge into my house, after everything that’s happened…” he trails off, shaking, eyes wide, pupils dilated. _“Do you know what we dragged out of a river six and a half hours ago?_ You come into my house telling these sad sick little lies?”

 

“I’m not lying,” Sherlock protests, “I’m not. She comes over at least once a week and-”

 

“Get out.”

 

“But-”

 

“Get out. Get out of my house _right now.”_

 

“But I just want to-”

 

Lestrade’s hand hits the table so hard and at such an angle that Sherlock knows that the detective has just cracked at least one metacarpal. Lestrade doesn’t so much as flinch; evidently the adrenaline is working to dull the sensation of pain in preparation for flight or fight. “Get out. Get out now.” A thin line of saliva begins to trickle down the side of his chin. His bottom lip curls under, exposing his lower incisors.

 

This has gone wrong. It’s all gone wrong. Sherlock calculates the probability that Lestrade’s about to physically attack and comes up with something close to one hundred percent. Sherlock could take him, of course, but after that the chances of Lestrade ever allowing Sherlock near another investigation drop right down to zero. Pragmatism always wins in the end as far as Sherlock’s involved. In slow, deliberate movements he gets up and begins moving towards the door, backwards so as not to expose himself to a surprise attack. He can’t help flinching when Lestrade snatches up the empty milk carton and throws it at his head.

 

Sherlock moves a bit faster after that.

 

Outside, the sleet has let up but the air is still damp and bitterly cold. As he dials for a taxi he can’t quite understand why his hands are shaking and his stomach unsettled. He tries to put it down to adrenalin, but it feels so very similar to the way he’d felt after John had shouted at him and slammed him against the wall.

 

Roadwork blocks the end of Baker Street when the taxi pulls up, and he’s forced to walk the remaining three blocks. The sleet hasn’t come back yet but the wind’s the same. It blows against his sodden coat, making him shudder uncontrollably. Then he looks up and sees her: Harriet. The cause of all of this. It’s her fault that he’s cold and wet and sick in his stomach. Like everyone else she’s hunched up against the wind, hands buried in her pockets. She hasn’t seen him because her eyes are fixed firmly on the ground.

 

There aren’t many people on the street but there are enough. He eels close and, very swiftly and carefully, brushes past a pair of pedestrians as they move just in front of Harriet. He sticks his elbow out at a precisely timed moment. One pedestrian makes a minute movement away and keeps walking for another three steps. Then, because Sherlock had nudged her ever so slightly off balance, she steps with her foot turned out to avoid a crack in the pavement when she should have turned in. She sways and brushes against her male companion, who hesitates and stumbles. Harriet isn’t paying attention and she crashes against the male pedestrian. She yelps and jumps back, tripping over her own feet and landing on her side. From the sound of the impact, Sherlock deduces that she’s likely bruised from knee to hip, and badly hit her shoulder as well. How very satisfying. He smiles in triumph.

 

His mobile beeps with a text message and he opens it without slowing down.

 

_You’ve been interfering. I told you not to. – MH_

_I don’t care. – SH_

_Might I ask why you felt the need to utterly destroy Harriet Watson’s ex-wife? – MH_

_I don’t like what Harriet Waston’s ex-wife said about John. – SH_

_How was your visit to Lestrade? – MH_

_Stop following me. – SH_

_No. – MH_

 

Sherlock scowls, his brief good mood gone. And when he gets home it’s to a flat that has been scrubbed to within an inch of its life, and to a John that’s drawing blood from his nails as he compulsively scrapes imaginary grease out from under them.

 

**

 

And three days later, it finally, _finally_ ends.

 

Late in the evening someone hammers desperately on the door. Mrs Hudson lets them in and Sherlock recognises Harriet’s distinctive step as she pounds up the staircase. Without knocking she barges into 221B. She heads straight towards Sherlock with hands raised and fingers curled into claws.

 

_“You did this! You did this, didn’t you! Admit it, you sick freak!”_

 

“Harry!” John bellows, “What the hell are you doing?” He’s fast and manages to intercept Harriet just before she reaches Sherlock. Harriet bursts into tears and slumps against her brother’s shoulder.

 

“He did it,” she sobs, “He’s the reason Clara’s been arrested. He put that _filth_ on her computer!”

 

“Harry, sweetheart, slow down. Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

“Clara’s work computer stopped working, and next thing anyone knows it’s spreading viruses everywhere. They called in a technician to fix it and he saw… saw awful, awful things. Child pornography and movies of animals and people being tortured…do you know what a crush video is? Do you?” John tries to answer but Harriet rides over the top of him. “It’s a type of pornography where a woman in beautiful shoes stomps kittens to death. And he-” Harriet’s brilliant blue eyes lock onto Sherlock’s face, _“-he’s_ the one who put it there! He’s the sick bastard who’s done this to her!”

 

“Harry, this is absurd,” John says furiously, “You can’t barge in here and say things like that.”

 

“The police came to see me at work. They had a warrant. They took my work computer, they took my home computer, they’ve searched my house looking for anything she might have given me- or me given to her!”

 

“Calm down!” John frames her face in his hands. “This is all a misunderstanding. It has to be. It’ll all blow over, you’ll see.” He glares at Sherlock, who has been watching avidly. “Won’t it, Sherlock?”

 

Harriet bursts into a fresh bout of tears, while Sherlock did his best to keep his distaste from showing. Added to her many sins is the trail of mucus and saliva she’s left on John’s shirt.

 

“It’s going to be all right. I promise. Shhhh. It’ll be fine. It will be. So please don’t cry.” John rocks her from side to side in a soothing motion. He doesn’t take his eyes off Sherlock. Sherlock stays very still, because right now there’s nothing but murder in John’s gaze and any abrupt movement could trigger him.

 

Sherlock really doesn’t want to hit John. And he doesn’t want John to hit him either.

 

And then:

 

Harriet sighs. She presses hard against her brother. There’s a subtle movement of her hips and John tenses suddenly. “John,” and the way she says his name is breathless and soft and raises the hairs on the back of Sherlock’s neck.

 

“Harry,” John says, “Please. Not now.”

 

“I need you,” Harry whimpers.

 

“No. No, not while someone is watching.”

 

Harriet rubs her forehead against John’s chest. Her eyes seek out Sherlock. They’re bright with malice. “I’m so afraid. I’m so scared.”

 

“Harry!” John sounds trapped. Frightened, but with an odd note of eagerness.

 

“Don’t you love me?”

 

“You know I do.”

 

“You’re my brother.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And if you loved me, you’d do this for me.” There it is again. That movement, that slow roll of the hips. Harriet’s hands slide down and under John’s shirt, and then up again. John shudders and Sherlock suddenly wants to kill the both of them.

 

“Harry…”

 

“Please, I’m so lonely.” John looks ready to cry. He pushes Harriet away. For one heart stopping instant Sherlock thinks that this is it, this is the moment where John frees himself from her, but all he does is take her by the hand and lead her away.

 

To his bedroom.

 

Leaving Sherlock snarling, enraged, disgusted and furious. He jumps up, seizes the book that John had been reading and tears it to pieces. There’s one of John’s famous trademark jumpers on the lounge; Sherlock grabs that as well and shreds it with fingernails and teeth. He makes a grab for John’s computer but it’s suddenly snatched away out of his reach. He whips around with murder on his mind and lunges, but Mycroft knows him too well and dances away.

 

“Sherlock,” Mycroft snaps, “Don’t be stupid.”

 

“I’m never stupid,” growls Sherlock, “And you shouldn’t be here.”

 

“Sherlock, you are making a spectacle of yourself. Stop.” Mycroft turns and walks into the kitchen.

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“To make myself a cup of tea.”

 

“I want one too.”

 

“Really? Well, you know the magic word that Mummy taught you.”

 

Sherlock pouts and throws himself down on the lounge. When Mycroft returns with a single cup with the tea pot, Sherlock is forced to get up and fetch his own cup. And then Mycroft refuses to pour it for him. This is unbelievably irritating.

 

“There’s a thread stuck in your teeth,” says Mycroft placidly.

 

It turns out that there’s more than one. Sherlock goes to the bathroom to floss, hears the bed springs in John’s room creak, and exits abruptly with floss in hand. He has to floss in the lounge room and decides to make a job of it. With gaping jaws and flopping tongue he puts on a grotesque display for Mycroft, who utterly refuses to show even an inkling of disgust. Finally, with blood dripping from his gums, Sherlock gives up. He slouches in his chair and contemplates the ceiling.

 

Mycroft is tapping away on his mobile. “Not long now.”

 

“Not long until what?”

 

There’s a gigantic crash. And then, shouting.

 

“That,” says Mycroft, looking unbelievably smug.

 

 _“What the hell are you doing?”_ It’s John. And he’s not happy.

 

Sherlock’s on his feet in an instant. And back off them just as quickly as Mycroft kicks them out from under him. Sherlock lands back in his chair with a thump. He sometimes forgets how fast Mycroft can move. Over short distances, that is.

 

“Just listen, Sherlock. It’s up to John to end it. Not you. Not me. He’s the only one who can do it. So just sit there and listen and don’t interfere.”

 

Another crash. Sherlock rubs what’s doubtless going to be a spectacular bruise on his ankle. And decides it would probably be more prudent to stay put. And absently plots a way to take a baseball bat to Mycroft’s kneecaps without getting caught. And listens.

 

“No. _No._ That’s just- _no._ Harry, we agreed. Not that. Anything else but that.”

 

“John, please, it’s not much, it’s just-”

 

“No.”

 

“But-”

 

_“I said no!”_

 

 “If you loved me you’d do it.”

 

“No!”

 

“John, it’s just a kiss!”

 

“No!”

 

“I need you. I need you to put your arms around me. I’m so lonely, John.”

 

The yelling fades away. John and Harriet lower their voices but they keep arguing. Some words can be made out: Kiss. Clara. Lonely. Brother. Sister. John. Sherlock. Harry. No.

 

No.

 

No.

 

No.

 

And there’s a violent thud, the sound of a body slamming against the wall. Harriet screams. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” Over and over. John is yelping like a dog in pain. And Sherlock is up and running towards John’s bedroom without any conscious thought to do so. But before he gets there the door is yanked open and Harriet comes running out. She throws a wild punch at Sherlock. He ducks and she’s gone, out of the flat, out of Baker Street, out of Sherlock’s sight. Which is probably just as well because when he sees John he wants to kill her all over again.

 

John is a wreck. His nose is bleeding, there are two splits in his bottom lip and there’s a significant swelling coming up around his eye. The way he’s nursing his wrist indicates that it’s been badly twisted; Harriet had obviously put a lock on it and used it as leverage to slam him against the wall. John is a military man. John has spent months chasing after Sherlock. John is incredibly capable at defending himself in hand to hand combat. If Harriet had hurt him, it was because he’d allowed her to do it. Sherlock tastes blood again; he’s grinding his teeth so hard that his abused gums are bleeding.

 

John hauls himself to his feet. He shoves himself past Sherlock and staggers into the bathroom, leaving Sherlock standing there, clenching his fists on nothing.

 

The old pipes rattle and clank as the shower starts up again.

 

“Cup of tea, Sherlock?” Mycroft calls out.

 

There really isn’t much else he can do. So Sherlock goes and sits on the lounge, feeling strangely empty, drained, like an abscess that’s been lanced, and waits for Mycroft to bring him out some tea.

 

“Where is it?” he asks eventually, when it doesn’t appear.

 

“Waiting for John to get out of the shower.”

 

“I want it now,” Sherlock says plaintively.

 

“Shut up, you dolt, and wait for John.”

 

The pipes shudder as the water is shut off. It’s a while before John emerges, but when he does the bruises are already forming, and at the corner of his mouth are tiny flecks of toothpaste.  He staggers forward and lands on his lounge chair just as Mycroft smoothly vacates it. Looking like a stunned mullet he accepts a cup from Mycroft, but he holds it like he’s not entirely sure what he’s meant to do with it.

 

Sherlock is suddenly, strangely, not in the mood for tea at all.

 

Mycroft leans elegantly against the mantelpiece and together, he and Sherlock wait for John to speak. When it comes, it comes in a torrent.

 

“She’s gone, isn’t she, she’s gone, Harry’s left. My sister. She’s left me. She said she wouldn’t. She said she wouldn’t leave and she has anyway. It was just a game, you see. That’s how it started. Doctors and nurses. She showed me hers and then I showed her mine because that’s the way it goes. But it should have ended there. It really should have, but didn’t.

 

“She used to touch me all the time. Telling me how strong and wonderful I was. How much she loved me.”

 

John doubles over. The cup dangles from his hand. Mycroft darts out and takes it before it can spill.

 

“It never stopped. The whole doctors and nurses thing. It just never stopped. She’d…she’d flirt with me. All the time. She’d touch me, make it seem accidental. I was just a kid, I didn’t know what she wanted but I did know that she drove me crazy. I used to have these dreams…wet dreams. Of her. Isn’t that sick?”

 

Blood is tricking from John’s lip again, down his chin, dripping onto his shirt. Sherlock looks wildly around for a tissue, but Mycroft’s suddenly there with an immaculately pressed handkerchief, dabbing at John’s face.

 

“She kept touching me. Over and over again. Just little touches all the time. I was thirteen. I was only thirteen when I first touched her back. It was…” he trails off. Mycroft’s fingers linger across John’s mouth for a bare second before he folds the blood stained cloth and stores it somewhere about his person. “It was our secret, our little secret. Even when she came out we still did it. She said that I was the only boy that she had wanted to make love to, ever.” John  suddenly bursts out laughing. “’Make love’. What a joke. Can’t we just call it what it is? It’s fucking. _I fuck my own sister._ I’ve been doing it for years.” He doubles over, wheezing, his voice muffled.

 

“When I went off to war, I thought, this is it, this is where it ends. We can be normal. We can be a normal brother and sister. But when I came back, we just started where we’d left off.

 

“I hate it. I hate myself. It’s wrong, it’s sick, it turns my stomach but she keeps coming back to me and we keep on doing it. She tells me it’s because she’s lonely. She always says that.

 

“But there’s one rule that we have. All this time. All these years. No kissing on the mouth. Ever. But tonight she did it. She kissed me on the mouth and I can’t…I can’t do this anymore. I really can’t. She told me that if I loved her I’d do it. Just one kiss, she said, she’s so upset about what happened to Clara.

 

“And I wouldn’t. I just can’t bring myself… I guess I don’t love her enough. I’ll do anything she likes except kiss her on the mouth.”

 

John looks up, his eyes skittering over Mycroft’s face and finally meeting Sherlock’s. “She always says that she’s lonely.” John tries to take the cup that Mycroft offers him again but his hands are shaking too much, and finally Mycroft wraps them in his own and helps him hold it steady enough to drink from.

 

“I’m sick,” John says. “I’m a monster. But you know what? I’m not the only monster here. She kept coming even when I told her that I didn’t want to do it anymore. I’ll let you in on a little secret,” he says, with a strange twisted smile that Sherlock doesn’t understand at all. “My eighteenth birthday. We had a massive party. All of her friends, all of my friends. Our parents were out of town, the mother of all parties. It was the best party of my life, before or since. Or it was, until everyone went home. I staggered off to bed, absolutely pissed. I could barely stand up. And then I woke up. It was just going daylight and there she was on top of me. She’d…you know…while I was asleep. And just climbed on. And I felt…oh god… like she’d raped me, but it doesn’t really work like that. That’s what the television always says, right? It has to be my fault. That’s just the way it is.

 

“She always says that she’s lonely. And that she loves me. Always.”

 

Mycroft takes the cup from John’s hands and sets it down on the table. Then he reaches out and strokes John’s hair. “You’re not a monster, Doctor Watson,” he says, leaning close.

 

Something curdles in Sherlock’s stomach and he can’t help looking away. He suddenly feels like he’s just lost something, but he doesn’t know what.

 

He glances up. His brother is stroking the side of John’s face. Sherlock wants to hit Mycroft, very hard. He doesn’t like Mycroft touching his things, never has. But the look in John’s eyes is something that Sherlock doesn’t understand and never has, and has never wanted to.

 

Sherlock gets up, puts on his coat and goes to track down Harriet. There’s still one question left to ask and she’s the only person who can answer it.

 

It’s chillingly cold outside and windy too, but at least the air is dry. He walks along Baker Street and does the calculations:

 

 

 

** Deduction One: **

 

Wind

=

Desire to keep moving with one’s back to it

 

 

 

** Deduction Two: **

 

Time

+

Licenses

=

Limited numbers of pubs open right now

 

 

** Deduction Three: **

 

Shame

=

Desire to hide

 

 

 

** Deduction Four: **

 

An alcoholic will always know exactly which pubs are open when at any given time in any given area

 

 

 

** Deduction Five: **

 

With the strength and chill factor of the wind, an average human is not going to want to walk any more than 1800 metres in it.

 

 

 

** Therefore: **

 

Harriet is going to walk no more than 1800 metres in front of the wind. Within this distance there are two pubs that will be open. One pub is open plan; the other is dark with high booths. Harriet is most likely to go to the one that has a surplus of hiding places.

 

** Conclusion: **

**Harriet will be drinking at the Five of Swords**

 

 

 

“Better make it quick,” says the bar tender as Sherlock orders a double shot of tequila. He takes the little glasses and seeks out the dingiest, darkest little corner of what is a dingy, dark little pub. Sherlock is vaguely annoyed by the fact that this bar tender isn’t one that owes him a favour and that he’s had to pay for the drinks, but that’s something he can rectify later.

 

There’s already an impressive collection of empty glasses and bottles in front of Harriet as Sherlock slides into the seat across from her. She twists her mouth as she sees him and takes another gulp of beer.

 

“What’s this then?” she sneers as he pushes the shot glasses towards her.

 

“Tequila. It’s the only alcoholic beverage I’ve never smelt on you before.”

 

“Fucker,” she says, but she throws the shots back anyway. “Are you happy now?” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

 

Sherlock has to think hard about this. That it’s over between John and she is something to be very glad of. But just as quickly something strange has started up between John and Mycroft, and Sherlock suspects that if it goes much further then it’ll quickly become just as twisted. How or why he can’t exactly say, only that it isn’t right.

 

Lestrade hasn’t answered Sherlock’s texts since the day Sherlock went to visit him. And for some strange reason, that makes his stomach hurt almost as much as John does.

 

“No,” Sherlock says truthfully. “No, I’m not.”

 

Harriet giggles. “And here’s me thinking you’d come to gloat. You’ve won.”

 

“I’ve won nothing.”

 

“Really?” Harriet tilts her head to the side and regards Sherlock, her mouth twisted in an ambiguous smile. “You’ve gotten rid of me, you’ve got your precious John back. You’ve hurt me through Clara.”

 

“You left her. How could anyone hurt you through her?”

 

There’s a loud thump as Harriet slams her glass down. “You really are an idiot, aren’t you?”

 

“I’m not an idiot,” Sherlock says flatly.

 

Harriet buries her face in her hands. She doesn’t make any noise, but there’s a minute tremble across one shoulder that indicates she’s holding back tears. “Why are you here?”

 

“I want to know why. All of it. He’s your brother. You’re homosexual. You don’t even find John sexually attractive. Why did you do it?”

 

A hysterical laugh claws its way out of her throat. She starts crying now, for real, rubbing at her eyes with her fingers.

 

“I love him, you know. There’s only two people in the world that I’ve ever loved, John and Clara. I didn’t even love our parents. None of my girlfriends before Clara. I said it and I thought I meant it but I didn’t really, until I met her.

 

“I love John. I suppose you think I hate him but that’s not true. I’m supposed to hate him, aren’t I. After all, he’s the success. He’s the doctor, the hero soldier who went off to fight for queen and country. And I’m the fuck up. I’m the queer, the dirty little secret who wants to fuck other girls. I’m the one who drinks all the time.

 

“I’m supposed to hate him. I’m supposed to be insanely jealous of him. But I’m not. I’m really not. I love him so much and I’m so proud of him. Every day. But it still didn’t stop me from hurting him.”

 

She raises her head and stares at him straight in the eye. And suddenly, Sherlock _does_ understand. He recognises the expression on her face. He sees it every day when he looks in the mirror. He knows what she’s going to say before she says it:

 

“I did it because I could.”

 

The bar tender yells for everyone to finish their drinks before closing time. Sherlock has one final question to ask.

 

“How did you always know when John was home?”

 

She smiles. “He’s my brother. I love him. I always know where he is. Always.”

 

“That makes no sense,” he tells her, but all she does is laugh and keep drinking. Harriet has said all she is going to say. Sherlock rewraps his scarf and goes home.

 

The wind seems twice as bitter as he walks into it. The cold swirls around him, sinking into his limbs. His mobile chimes with a text message and he ducks into a little warm nook to read it. It’s from Lestrade:

 

_lady who killd her kids found out her hsbnd was sleeping w/ her sister she hurt them frist b4 she drownd them thght u should no_

 

Hideous crime against the English language aside, this little story is another thing that Sherlock doesn’t understand, but he knows John can explain it to him later.

 

The flat is dark and very cold as he gets in. Mycroft is long gone. The cushions on the lounge are crooked and the windows are cracked open the wind creeping through the gaps. A credulous person, seeing the crooked cushions and the open windows, would think that sexual activity had occurred on the lounge and the room aired to get rid of certain tell tale scents. Sherlock knows, however, that Mycroft is fond of red herrings and deception. Without further data, any conclusions are purely speculative.

 

Sherlock shuts the windows and bolts them. He checks the thermostat on the heating system before he takes off his coat and scarf, hanging them neatly on the hooks. He also takes off his shoes before padding towards John’s room in his socks. The door is open; Sherlock stands there, listening to John’s breathing until John says irritably, “Is there anything you wanted?”

 

Sherlock walks in and sits down on the floor beside John’s bed; he leans against it, his fingers gliding smoothly under it, counting the bolts and screws holding the frame together.

 

There’s an irritable rustle as John rolls over. “Come in, make yourself at home,” he mutters, “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

 

“Yes,” says Sherlock, twisting the little button that had been glued there by one of Mycroft’s spooks. Slipping it into his pocket, he makes a mental note to search both his and John’s room thoroughly later. He’d not thought to search the bedrooms for bugs; he’d thought that Mycroft’s interest would be limited to the shared areas. The revelation that Mycroft had been listening into John and Harriet having sex raises all sorts of unfortunate implications.

 

John hums sleepily. “Did you find it?”

 

Sherlock thinks hard. “Yes,” he says eventually, “I did. I’ve found it. All of it.”

 

“That’s good,” John tells him.

 

And Sherlock sits there, in the dark, listening to John breathe.

 

 

 

  **END**

**Author's Note:**

> No sequel. 
> 
> Sorry about all the spelling and grammar mistakes; I'll be along later to fix them. I just wanted to get this fic posted and _over._
> 
> Title has changed. Used to be 'incest is best (put your sister to the test)'


End file.
